Are You Settling into a Rut, or Creating a Conscious Life?

Creating a life by design – living a life on Your Terms comes from consciously making choices.  Decisions stemming from your values, and what is important to you, not what other’s expect of you.

Yes, you can choose to live by others’ needs, and demands, but living by choice creates different feelings, responses, and interactions.

Owning one’s decision is empowering. You are in charge of your choices, stepping from being a victim of others’ expectations into a conscious agreement with yourself to be, do, and live in ways that work for you, for now.

I lived in a state of victimhood for most of my life. I looked at others’ and wanted what they had. Everyone seemed to have what success was meant to be the house, travel, family, power, influence, and money.  They seemed to have choices in life, whereas I didn’t feel I had any.

Until I chose to explore my life, and what living meant to me, I was stuck in my beliefs from growing up ….. be the good girl and stay safe from abuse.

Don’t get too loud, naughty, playful, out there, smart, or rely on others to help you.

Be resilient, independent, and silent.  Don’t tell others what is going on; they won’t believe you anyway.

You are just a girl; who do you think you are to know about things that are male roles?

Basically, don’t have a thought, a voice, ask for things, have expectations for things to be different, or be yourself, let alone consider there could be a different way.  This is how things were to be.  Your lot in life, and get on with it.

Looking back, I understand why I was told these things.  My parents were also victims of their era and family teachings.  As were everyone else.

Our society, at the time and previous generations, developed deep needs for security and safety by conforming and achieving greater than the poverty they experienced or were told.

They lived through wars, depression, and very male dominating times where the women of the house were expected to be barefoot and pregnant, without contraception, control or choice over their bodies, let alone their home.

Today, we are encouraged to step out, be different, to get to know ourselves, and what is important to us, at a deep level, but against the backdrop of generations of limitations, fears, and norms that don’t work anymore.  This only adds to the confusion and pain, creating palatable tension between desiring different and yet feeling the need to conform and stay how we were.

Confusion, pain, angst, guilt, grief, sadness, loss, loneliness, isolation, fear, uncertainty, and a whole host of other big feelings come to the surface when we start to dream of something different, more aligned with our core values and living from love.

Yet, this is where the magic begins…..

Exploring what is important to us as an individual and consciously deciding what we will create in our life, then learning the skills to let go of past constraints and unserving rules.

The biggest questions start by asking yourself powerful questions, listening to the answers, honouring the feelings that arise, and taking ownership of what you choose to do at the moment.

It’s about

• being ok with continuing what you feel you can’t change, yet.
• being ok to do something different, testing the water to see if it does fit well with your image of yourself.
• being ok to say no to what you would typically say yet to and vice versa.
• being ok to set different boundaries, and speak from your truth and, at times, upsetting others, because they are surprised that you now have a voice they didn’t think you had.
• unlearning habits, rules, expectations, stories, and rationales for being the scapegoat, the good girl, the reliable, the conformist, the people pleaser, go-to person who gets stuff done.
• learning strategies of coping with the parts of you, starting to shine through learning how to say no, and yes with confidence, and stepping into your power when you expect to be shut down, abused, ignored, dishonoured, etc.
• learning what works for you, feels true to your values, and what you dream your life to be in the future.
• developing the tenacity, and self-belief that life is possible for you too.
  to grow into confidence, skills, knowing, self-belief, and self-love in healthy ways and unapologetically become unf__kable.
• healing the past, and coming to peace with what has happened. Forgive those who also didn’t know anything different because of the era they lived in, and what they were taught, and there honestly wasn’t the support and research to encourage another way of living and loving.
• forgiving yourself for all the times, you self-abused, neglected, abandoned, rejected, and hurt yourself because you didn’t know or believed there was a different way possible for you.
• writing your future, the way you want to live, love, share and be known for. The legacy you choose to leave behind and be remembered for.  Whatever way or form this is for you.

The era we are living in is a blessing in so many ways.  The message challenges the norms, rules, and conformity of generations of the past.  It is asking us all to become more real, honest, authentic and in integrity from the deepest part of ourselves – unconditional love.  To live this way invites us to learn how to love ourselves unconditionally, and in the process, open up to loving others with the same amount of empathy, compassion, encouragement, and belief that we are not broken but hiding under layers and eons of BS that tell us what we are not.

The challenge is open to all. It is up to each individual to decide to Create Your Life on Your Terms.   What your life looks, feels and is experienced how.  Choosing your response and emotional response to what is happening in and around you.  To raise your vibration towards acceptance, and allowance of choices, while still holding morally high standards of “What would love do now?” and this, at times is about saying a very clear NO! and asking others to step up.

Life is challenging but only as challenging as we choose to make it.  The further we step away from love and our life purpose, the more challenging it gets. Our inner compass draws us back like a magnet, but our choices pull in a different direction creating the corresponding tension load.

Yes, the choice is yours; you can choose when, how, and why you choose differently. It might be now, soon, next year or never, and each is a perfectly ok choice.

Creating your life is about clearing the hidden fears, hurts, limiting beliefs, and stories that keep you stuck in the past handed to you by your family, friends, schooling, society, media, and a whole lot more.